My Dear Readers,

The Judges have spoken. Here are the winners of the Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose. Congratulations to those who won prizes and to those who won Honorable Mentions. Your poems are fabulous. I am beyond grateful you entered the contest. In my heart you are all winners. Thank you!

This post features only the poems of the winners.

My Friday post will feature the poems of those who received Honorable Mentions.

The Winners of The Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose are:

First Place
Virginia Mateias

Second Place
Ingrid Wilson
Eric Daniel Clarke

Third place
D. Wallace Peach
Timothy Price

Honorable Mentions [in no particular order]

Joni Caggiano
Cindy Georgakas
Jeff Flesch
Karima Hoisan
Carrie Yang

The Poems of the Winners:

Virginia Mateias, Crystals from the absurd
[Inspired by Moonlight love]

author’s site

I couldn’t see the dawn.
The bed was too far away
from the sky.
Fallen angels
had covered the window with forlorn crystals
absurdly beautiful.
Out of them
our own feelings
were watching us askance.

The air was talking to me somewhere:
Wait, he’ll be coming!
But, you see,
your arm locked me in
like an arch
and I fell asleep
to the earth’s heavy core.

I couldn’t see the dawn.
In the murky moonlight
fallen angels crystallized in silence
are keeping vigil.
Only the razor-smile
of the Seller of Time
taunts me from crystals.
It is always midnight now.

Ingrid Wilson, Event Horizon 
[Inspired by You in Other Life]

author’s site

In another life
we were lovers:
don’t you feel it?
Somewhere beyond the limits of the sea

we set sail hard for the horizon,
hard to tell if we should sink or fall
over the precipice
for sure, we fell

past the event horizon
infatuated light
obliterated
in the black hole of each other’s lover’s eyes

annihilated, sucked in, then spat out
into another world
another life
where we were lovers:
don’t you remember?

Eric Daniel Clarke, Somewhere Stations
[Inspired by The Train to Vienna]

author’s site

Night train to Verona,
somewhere, stations,
border crossings, awake,
shadow form, arrival.

By road, Lake Garda,
old walls, Sirmione,
gelato, street walking,
poolside, English tea.

Took to water, Malcesine,
close-packed, cable sway,
Monte Baldo, chilled view,
ant-like British queue. 

First class, rail to Venice,
memories, prior arrival,
duckboards, rain walking,
sweat-soaked crowds today.

Retrace, platformed faces,
Paris, twilight until morning,
steep-stepped, Sacre Coeur,
vows in silence, understood. 

D. Wallace Peach, Eclipsed
[Inspired by The Moon and I]

author’s site

The moon and I trade glances beneath the light of ages
reflections of our phases, we traverse boundaries of shadow
the birth and death of stars adorns our voyage
my course uncharted on a shoreless sea.

She is the sand-dollar storyteller of sirens and undertows
hidden caves beneath blooms of coral, troves of stolen gold
a moon-faced child unblemished by the salt of tears she weaves
tales of faithfulness sung to the sea’s rhythmic strum.

A seductress, she trades in the caress of madness and liquid kisses
when a timorous heart flares and passion burns by torchlight
skin and wings consumed, I surrender to the mariner’s lure
drown in the tide’s curling crush and gull’s lonesome cry.

She is the gibbous years, molding castles of compromise
sand towers dripping through faults in cupped hands
I comb the half-moon beach for luminous abalone
craft a chime of common jingle shells, all that I find.

She is the windborne balloon of my daughter’s dream awakening
a boy fishes upon the crescent of her smile
sea-smoothed glass tumbles at their feet for sorting, for choosing
for all my devotion, iron ships founder like paper-sailed toys.

She whispers a harmony of waxing and waning
an old crone’s serenade in her waves’ refrain
when sea thrift and violets yield petals to sheer bluffs
she chants from the conch cupped to my ear:

You are the nautilus spinning outward
eternal feminine on a string of pearls
iridescent ’til the sun succumbs to midnight deep
when a silken wind sweeps over lunar dunes
erasing your footprints
rolls you into darkness
eclipsed.

Timothy Price, One Side Sacred The Other Side Profane
[inspired by Between Sacred and Profane]

author’s site

Quicksilver shimmers, dances — it’s mesmerizing, mad
Stealthily slithered made its way slowly to the bay
Dumped in fact for many years
A disease so mysterious, unexplained
One side sacred. The other side profane

Shoulders bare in her bath of darkened waters stilled
Quicksilver’s spawn crippled lies in darkness no free will
Mother cuddles her loved, her badly damaged daughter
A mystery in her mother’s arms distorted from the pain
Industry is sacred, her life made profane

A man of vision documented, published all the strife
For his efforts he was beaten to within inches of his life 
Trying to enlighten the world he gave up his sight
He died for the cause, was his martyrdom in vain?
Jobs are sacred, his life’s end profane

Thousands fell from Quicksilver’s seeds inside their mothers’ wombs
Those children grew up oh so numb, fell blinded, deaf and dumb
Ostracized, outcasts convulsing from their awful curse
It was “cat dance fever” so many said that made them go insane
Society is Sacred. Their lives were profane

Announcements:

1. To all winners: please send your PayPal accounts to shortprose12@gmail.com. Vita Brevis Press will disburse the prizes from my royalties no later than the end of the week.
2. The selection of the winners was a very difficult task. My deepest thanks to the judges.
3. Please remember to help our literary community and buy a book or two. If you do so please save this post and leave in the comment area the Amazon link of the book(s) you bought.
4. The Honorable Mention poems will post on Friday. Please read my Friday post. The poetry of those who received Honorable Mentions is also stunning.
5. Next Tuesday I will announce another initiative to help our community strive more.
6. Please do not forget to visit MasticadoresUsa.

@Gabriela Marie Milton